Paul Dewar on Canada-Panama Free Trade Act

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the point of view of the member. I know that when the amendments were brought to the committee, two parties voted against them. I will leave it to him to look over the minutes and talk to his colleagues about how that went down.

I am curious of the Liberal member's position of accepting tax havens and tax avoidance as long as it is declared. However, if the Liberal Party is so concerned about this issue of double taxation of tax havens, we need to understand the sequence.

When the OECD reports that it has concerns regarding a jurisdiction and we do not have this kind of agreement in place, it is odd for members to say that they will support the government's trade agreement, but they would also like to see an agreement on double taxation disclosure and tax havens be realized. The sequence is entirely wrong. A principled stand would be to say that because they are so concerned about this and until such time as it is dealt with, they will not support the government on it. Does the Liberal Party believe the government will actually get that job done? It will be moving on to the next trade agreement with whomever and forgetting about that.

The problem for the Liberal Party is that it has a position, but it has not followed up with a principled position on the vote. We can have a position, we can have many positions, but if we do not vote to back up that position then, it is just words, and that is unfortunate.